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I’m not a terrorist, just a reporter

Maybe if I’d been nicer to that reporter many years ago, it would be easier to now walk in his shoes.

Tired and hungry, I was barking orders and trying to get a perimeter established when the assigned imbedded reporter sauntered up and presented his credentials.

Freshly shaven and showered, and dressed like something out of a 1950s safari movie, his very existence aggravated me.

I said, “You have your orders and I have mine but know this: I don’t want you here. You’ll follow my orders to the letter and I’ll do my duty. I’ll make sure you get your stories. But cross me once, just once, or get one of my men hurt and they’ll be finding pieces of you in the desert 10 years from now. Is that understood?”

He flinched, almost imperceptibly, and then shot back, “Nice speech. Can I quote you?”

Our relationship was rocky but he grew on me and it’s only now that I’ve come to appreciate his bravery.

He walked unarmed and unafraid into a group of hardened men where his presence wasn’t likely to be accepted, especially by the veterans who found their commander’s order to accommodate the press absurd.

In the months that followed, he never faltered. He carried his own weight and occasionally some of ours. He became our comrade and we ceased to be afraid to talk around him.

My team was good but not infallible and we weren’t happy when he witnessed our mistakes as men and Soldiers.

Yet, the historical record holds no deep detailing of our failings.

We likely sometimes appeared to him as a Greek Tragedy but in his equitable portrayal we were the Argonauts, warts and all.

My battlefield is much more gentile than his. When I raise my head from a hide position in an attempt to capture the words and wisdom of local leaders, school-board officials, government representatives or law-enforcement agencies, I’m fairly confident I won’t be shot (though I’m not always certain).

The press, the fourth estate, whatever your preferred label for those who collect and publically report information, is a necessary process in our society but it’s a minefield craft and I’m certainly getting my cosmic comeuppance for previous sins against reporters.

There are days when just getting a telephone response is like pulling teeth.

Citizens deify and vilify the press simultaneously. Having established adversarial camps, the press that reinforces one’s views are saints, while the press that does not or may not share your view is, according to one recent resident characterization, “stupid.”

I’ve yet to be in any gathering where the speaker or leader didn’t make a random and sometimes snarky aside about the presence of the press, before subverting his or her own words to nervous laughter.

In other settings, the reception is cold and aloof, and deliberately secretive despite whatever previous words have been written to the group’s acclaim.

Granted, the larger press is equally responsible for this behavior because many have chosen to take a side. Objectivity has been replaced with objective.

The 24-hour news cycle engenders confrontation under one or another cultural banner at the behest of men and women who should behave better.

My assumption is that I’m thus expected to take a side locally and use words as weapons.

I think this silly and way beyond my pay grade to fix. Having neither the true curriculum vitae for this task nor interest in further combat, I’m recalling the lessons I learned from a desert reporter long ago.

When I ask for the names of kids who won an award, it’s because I want to brag on them and speak to the future.

When I ask a simple question about your organization, it’s so whatever minor gift I may have is applied to showcasing your effort - win, lose or draw.

When I ask your position, it’s so I may reveal to others the strength of your conviction, not my validation of your opinion.

I see so many great stories in our community and I encourage you to help me tell them.